Writing Without a Net

By Vicki Delany, guest blogger

Every writer has a different approach to how to structure their novel. Some outline extensively; some do almost nothing in terms of planning. Some concentrate on plot, and the characters follow along; for some character is almost all they have.

Me, I build a story this way: setting-characters-plot. That is, I decide where to set the book, who’s going to be the main character or characters and then come up with a plot. Now that I’m working on a series, steps one and two are pretty much defined before I even begin.

My newest novel is titled Winter of Secrets, and is the third in the Constable Molly Smith series, from by Poisoned Pen Press. This book was a total departure from my usual style of writing, and I’d like to tell you about it.

For most of my adult life I was a computer programmer and then a systems analyst. I write books like I designed computer systems. I start at the end – I know who did it and why – and then I go to the beginning and create an outline that will, hopefully, chart a course to get me to that end. Like designing computer systems: you really should know what you want to achieve (i.e. is this programme going to credit the client’s account or debit it?) before you begin. I have met some computer programmes that I don’t think were ever intended to achieve anything, but that’s another matter.

I was spending Christmas 2007 in my favourite place in the world, Nelson, B.C., the inspiration for the fictional town of Trafalgar. It was snowing, quite heavily, but as is the norm in those mountains, there wasn’t any wind and the snow was falling straight down and not drifting. This, I thought, would be a mess if they had winds like we get in Ontario. And then the opening scene popped into my head.

What a great idea, thinks I. I started writing the first chapter and carried on typing frantically away from there. I knew who died, but I didn’t know who killed him, or why, or even if anyone did! It was quite a strange feeling; a pure leap of hope, that I would find some inspiration down the line.

I was nearing the climax – I knew what I wanted to happen there – but I was still unsure between two possible candidates for the role of villain. Over the course of the writing, I had several people in mind, but as it evolved only two were good prospects. I felt sort of like a real Constable Molly Smith, judging the suspects and juggling clues until, with a burst of inspiration, I solved the crime!

My second drafts are usually a lot of work, but with this book, it was even more so. Because I didn’t know that X was the guilty party, I had to go back and make X know more than they seemed to and Y know less. The personality of X didn’t change much throughout the book, but it had to be tweaked a bit to make the crime more plausible, and to drop a few clues here and there. And all the clues that pointed to Y had to be toned down.

It was a fun way to go about it. Will I do that again? No. It worked because I had a very definite idea for the opening of the book and I was prepared to work my way forward from there. But all in all, I prefer to have a good outline before beginning. When I started working on the next book in the series, Negative Image, I put that net up first.

Visit the author's web site at www.vickidelany.com.

Ten Ways To Help You Keep Your Writing Resolutions

by Darlene Ryan

Whether your New Year's resolution is to write in more depth, more detail or just write more words here are ten ways to help you meet your goals.

Having problems plotting?
1. Kris Neri teaches classes for the Writers Program of the UCLA Extension School (www.uclaextension.edu). And she’s the author of the Tracy Eaton mysteries.

2. Laura Baker and Robin Perini’s novel building technique, Discovering Story Magic, is “a three-step method to writing a story they can’t refuse.” Robin and Laura have taught their process at workshops and writing events across the country.

3. Literary agent Donald Maas teaches workshops throughout the year based on his book, Writing the Breakout Novel.

Stuck on the dreaded synopsis?

4. Shelia Kelly aka Lynn Viehl, aka S.L. Viehl, aka Rebecca Kelly, aka Jessica Hall, has sold more than three dozen books including the popular Darkyn and Star Doc series.

St. Martin’s Press sponsors four contests for mystery and suspense writers.

5. a. St. Martin’s Minotaur/Malice Domestic Competition for the best first traditional mystery novel,
b. Best Private Eye Novel Competition sponsored by St Martin’s Press and the Private Eye Writers of America,
c. Hillerman Mystery Contest sponsored by St Martin’s Press and the Tony Hillerman Writers conference,
d. St. Martins Minotaur/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel competition

Should you blog? Do you need a website? Should you give away free copies of your book?

6. J.A. Konrath is the author of the Lt. Jacqueline Daniels thrillers. Check out his free e-book of Market tips on his website.

7. Marketing guru Seth Godin writes the most popular marketing blog in the world. His book, Unleashing the Idea Virus, is the most popular e-book ever written with more than 2 million copies downloaded.

Stuck on the details?

8. Lee Lofland is a veteran police investigator and expert on crime scene investigations and police procedures. Check out Lee’s blog, The Graveyard Shift.

9. For medical and forensics questions visit The Writers Medical and Forensics Lab, created by Dr. D.P. Lyle

Looking for help on where to put the commas or whether it’s “a lot” or “alot?”

10. Dr. Grammar is a website dedicated to helping writers.

Following the Maybes

Elizabeth Zelvin

I don’t write about writing as frequently as my blog sisters on Poe’s Deadly Daughters. Maybe that’s because my method doesn’t bear too much analysis. In the division between outliners and into-the-mist writers (or seat-of-the-pantsers, as some call them), I fall definitely—or mistily—into the category of those who don’t or can’t outline. Picking my way through a mist, with light shining only a little way ahead and no idea what lies beyond that bit of illumination, is an excellent description of how I write a novel. As I’ve said before, writing short—a poem, a story, a song, a blog post, or a letter to an online therapy client—is a whole lot easier than writing in the mist.

In a recent online discussion about how people write, I was interested to learn that for some writers, outlining means not a sheaf of pages that look like a Power Point presentation, but a collection of little notes. Using index cards or Post-its, they write signposts along the path of the story. For example: “The power fails, lights go out, covering up second murder.” “Journalist wrote a story about the developers.” “Protag and friends search boyfriend’s room for victim’s notebook.” “Roommate is bulimic, hears murderer while in bathroom throwing up.”

“Ohhh,” I said. “Is that outlining? I do that—or something very like it.” My examples are in fact notes from a manuscript later in my series. All of them were written during the writing of the first draft—not before, but during the process, as they occurred to me. Some of the events mentioned made it into the draft, others did not. The story took itself in different directions. But that’s exactly what these little-note outliners say happens to their stories. The outline is not inflexible, and it can’t be allowed to trammel the creative process. On the other hand, it is much harder to write not knowing what’s going to happen next, no less in the end, from moment to moment the whole length of 250 pages.

So what’s the difference between outlining and what I do? Is there a difference? For one thing, these notes by no means tell the story. They cover only those flashes in the midst that happen to catch my inner eye. When I think of a mist with headlights trying to break through and mysterious happenings hidden behind its veil, I think of a drive my husband and I once took along the Blue Ridge Parkway on a day so foggy that the Blue Ridge was invisible. It was very quiet, the damp air a heavy blanket muffling sound and movement. Once or twice we spotted a deer cropping grass by the roadside, undisturbed by the beam of our headlights glancing off it.

The note taking is like that. If the headlights fall to the left, I see a deer—make a note. There may be a bear to the right that I never see. Sometimes the note-thoughts come to me as I write, sometimes as I lie in bed thinking of yesterday’s writing and of today’s to come. Sometimes not just plot ideas but lines of dialogue and even occasional descriptive passages bubble up while I’m out running. That’s why I carry a lightweight digital recorder. I get it down before I can forget it and make the note when I get back to my pen and my Post-its.

But here’s the biggest difference. To me, “outline” means “commitment.” If I say I’m an outliner, I must have sticky notes, and each note must represent a bit of the story that I am committed to tell, even if the rule is that it’s okay to change my mind later. Every single one of my notes (including the true versions of the examples above) start with “Maybe.” “Maybe the power fails…” “Maybe the journalist wrote a story…” “Maybe the roommate is bulimic…” I’m not committed. But I don’t want to throw away what may turn out to be perfectly good plot points, certainly not just because of my lousy aging memory. Writing it down is like taking a quick photo of that deer at the edge of the mist. I’ve got it, and if I want to, I’ll use it later—maybe.

Only So Many Stories: The Seven Original Plots

Elizabeth Zelvin

I first learned that there are only seven original plots
by reading Emily of New Moon, my favorite book as a child. I found the text of L.M. Montgomery’s 1923 classic about the other little orphan girl on Prince Edward Island on the Internet at Project Gutenberg of Australia, which states its “eBooks are created from printed editions which are in the public domain in Australia.” So I can cite the memorable passage:

“I’m in a scrape and I’ve been in it all summer. You see”—Emily was very sober—“I am a poetess.”

“Holy Mike! That is serious. I don’t know if I can do much for you. How long have you been that way?”

“Are you making fun of me?” asked Emily gravely.

Father Cassidy swallowed something besides plum cake.

“The saints forbid!...Have another slice av cake and tell me all about it.”

“It’s like this—I’m writing an epic….My epic,” said Emily, diligently devouring plum cake, “is about a very beautiful high-born girl who was stolen away from her real parents when she was a baby and brought up in a woodcutter’s hut.”

“One av the seven original plots in the world,” murmured Father Cassidy.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just a bad habit av thinking aloud. Go on.”

“She had a lover of high degree but his family did not want him to marry her because she was only a woodcutter’s daughter—”

“Another av the seven plots—excuse me.”

“—so they sent him away to the Holy Land on a crusade and word came back that he was killed and then Editha—her name was Editha—went into a convent—”

Emily paused for a bite of plum cake and Father Cassidy took up the strain.

“And now her lover comes back very much alive, though covered with Paynim scars, and the secret av her birth is discovered through the dying confession av the old nurse and the birthmark on her arm.”

“How did you know?” gasped Emily in amazement.

“Oh, I guessed it—I’m a good guesser.”

Is that priceless or what? I’ve quoted as little as I could bear to. Having been imprinted on Father Cassidy’s list, but not having read it for many years, I’ve always assumed the list of seven ran something like this:
. Boy meets girl
.The lost heir
.The disguised hero or role reversal
.The hero’s quest (with subsets that include David and Goliath, Hero saves world, and Disney’s favorite, The lost mother)
.Coming of age (or is that another subset of The hero’s quest too?)
and let’s round out the list with two plots essential to mystery writers:
.Boy murders girl
.Sleuth solves crime

When I consulted the Internet, I found that not everybody’s list of seven is the same as everybody else’s. On several sites, I found (with and without attribution), this very different list. The reference is Foster Harris, William. The Basic Patterns of Plot. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1959.

.[wo]man vs nature
.[wo]man vs man
.[wo]man vs. the environment
.[wo]man vs. machines/technology
.[wo]man vs the supernatural
.[wo]man vs. self
.[wo]man vs God/religion

Yet another seven are proposed by Christopher Booker in The Seven Basic Plots. London/NY: Continuum, 2005.

.Overcoming the monster
.Rags to riches
.The quest
.Voyage and return
.Comedy
.Tragedy
.Rebirth

And I can’t resist quoting a passage from a review of Booker’s book by Adam Mars-Jones in The Observer, Sunday, November 21, 2004. It’s almost as delicious as Emily’s conversation with Father Cassidy.

Christopher Booker’s hefty tome of cultural archaeology is peculiar, repetitive, near-barmy, and occasionally rather good. He takes the commonplace idea that there are only so many stories in the world and follows it very far indeed. Obsession is almost too small a word to describe an enterprise which has consumed 34 years and required a reading list more or less synonymous with the history of literature.

Hmm, I wonder if Mr. Booker blogs.

Even though these ways of conceiving the basic plot are not identical, they are certainly interrelated. On a structural level, the writer is unlikely to break entirely new ground, at least without abandoning plot altogether. Our plots can’t possibly be original. And that explains what’s wrong with all those benighted friends and strangers who tell us they have a marvelous idea for a book and they bet we’d love to write it. The knack of telling a good story is not the plot itself. It’s in how we tell the story: how we paint the scene and how we populate it, what our characters get up to and what they say in the course of meeting and murdering each other, pursuing the quest, solving the crime, and so on.

After a recent panel, a young man came up to me and expressed concern because the brief description of Death Will Get You Sober on my promotional bookmark resembled the novel he’s working on: his protagonist is a drug addict who goes into treatment, somebody is murdered, etc. (Now where does “Boy gets clean and sober” fit in? The hero’s quest? Man vs self? Coming of age—belatedly?) As I assured him, neither of us need worry. I don’t need to read his work to know he can’t possibly write just like me.

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